


Atlantis

by coeurastronaute



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, The aquaman au no one asked for, but here we are
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-04-28 02:44:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14439780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coeurastronaute/pseuds/coeurastronaute
Summary: Lexa is the heir to the throne of Atlantis, forced to live her life by her father's rules. All of that changes when she finally has contact with land.





	1. Chapter 1

Removed from the city, but too close for comfort, they heard the dull hum of muffled machinery. The city was just a spot of glowing opulence in the distance behind them as they trekked out to the very edges of the country. Just beyond the western canyon, past the sentinel-like Black Mountains, new machines, heavy and cumbersome monsters, squatted on the virgin soil of their forefathers. The machines blindly groped through the dirt, searching for something, upturning reefs and caves, leaking foul-smelling chemicals and exhaust like a cloud through the area.

For the longest time, the heir watched the large machine, observed the cable moving and the drone that came to adjust the tubes and wires when they get caught somewhere as the machines whirred and thundered along. For two days she stalked them, debating what was to come next.

Much like the thinker, she sat on the edge of the cliff and peered at the device the size of a great white, twirling her spear absently while her mind worked at the problem at hand. Never one for too many words, she did not waste them debating like her accomplices, nor did she listen too much to what they said. Instead, she ran through all of the lessons of her training, all of the things imparted upon her, and she tried to decide as rulers are meant to do.

“Tonight,” he decided as she led her friends back to the city. “We rid ourselves of the surface tonight.”

“The King said to wait.”

“The King is protecting our home from the threat above,” Roan tightened his jaw, still slightly bitter to be left behind yet again. “We will take care of this ourselves. It is our way.”

“You may avoid jail time for disobeying the King,” Anya grinned as they made their way back toward home. “But I think I’m about two exploits and a few years past his forgiveness.”

“The treaty is clear on this,” the heir’s cousin argued, his words growing more agitated, as he was known to be. “Those primitive air-breathers are not allowed to mine without explicit permission from the King.”

“We breathe air,” she reminded him.

“You know what I mean. Those vile creatures don’t care about anything. They deserve everything Neptune does to them.”

“The gods are never wrong, but they suffer often for the actions of a few.”

“Not often enough,” he snorted. “Let them all drown after what they try to do to us, dumping trash, oil leaks. And then, to think that the King bows down to their laws is atrocious.”

Quiet as they made their way back, Lexa nodded politely to the guard who opened the door. The argument took a pause as the water drained from the entry chamber. She heard their words rattling around in her ears, and she knew already, deep down, what the proper choice was supposed to be, the one her father would have picked, the one that some of those who still ascribed to the old way of thinking wouldn’t understand. She was not pure enough in their eyes, and this wouldn’t help any.

Like children, they bickered and she pinched her eyes over the bridge of her nose, exhausted by it.

“Enough,” she said as they reached heightened volume levels. She didn’t have to yell. Her voice carried itself. “My father’s word is law. We will make him aware of what has happened when he returns, but for now, nothing is to be done except monitoring. We have bigger enemies right now than those things.”

“And if they pass the territory line?” Roan challenged, standing tall and firm.

“We do what we always do,” Lexa sighed.

“I’m going to sit at that line and wait,” he decided, stalking away, bitter at his own lineage. “Those air sacs are going to ruin us, and you’re going to let them.”

“Well, that went… exactly as I thought it would,” Anya nodded to herself as she watched his form disappear around a corner. They heard a crash a bit later, the inevitable tossing of his helmet fueled by his own disgust.

“I understand his dire need to protect us, but he doesn’t want to cohabitate. He wants war. He wants the old ways.”

“Your father would be proud of how you’re thinking.”

“My father would tell me to keep a better eye on Roan,” Lexa sighed, tugging off her own helmet as they walked down the hall. “I’ll see you later.”

“Don’t let Roan worry you too much.”

“On my list of worries, he is surprisingly low lately,” she assured her friend, gripping her forearm and squeezing with a small smile.

“Let me know if you go out,” Anya offered. “No sneaking again. Your father will have my head. And I know I joke about that, but one day he’s going to be pretty serious.”

“One day,” Lexa teased.

The Castle was her home. She knew every inch of it. Every entrance, every tunnel, every room, like the back of her hand. She knew the streets, the lands, the houses, the buildings of her city because it was her duty and she felt it in her bones. She felt all that it was in her blood.

Too many thoughts rolled around in her head as she made her way down the hall, toward the library. Up above, on the surface, her father was busy with larger threats, all of which many on the council, many in the palace, many in the city did not understand or care to acknowledge.

Lexa made it three minutes in the library before her body was too anxious and she moved to the sparring room, stopping near the entrance to say her words to the statue at the front.

All too soon, her body overpowered her mind, blanking it out as the muscles moved and flexed and stretched. It was easy to sweat, to feel the salt, to return it back to the world, as it was what she was made of, what built her.

“Another trip to the edge of the border?” A soft voice interrupted her movements, though they did not stop them, merely brought her back from the edge of solitude.

Lexa finished her form before she stilled and tried to catch her breath. The practice trident eventually dropped as she grinned and met her mother’s eyes.

“Any word yet?”

“He’ll be back soon, I’m sure,” she promised, twirling a practice trident around in her hand gracefully. “How is the Eastern front?”

“Busy.”

There was always this nagging part of herself that she wanted to be like her mother– fierce, loved, beautiful, passionate, kind, loving. She was adored by all and feared by just as many. There was something to her soft smile and her quietness that just left her a mystery in the best kind of way. Lexa rarely felt like any of the things her mother was, and yet she always sought to be more like her than her father, which most people would never see. Both her parents were regal, but her mother was perfection. Her father would eagerly agree.

“Don’t worry about it too much. Your cousin hasn’t come to see your father’s way of thinking of the outside world.”

With a little flourish, the queen weighed the trident before giving it a nice heave across the room and into a dummy.

“Father said you were the best with a trident.”

“Taught him everything he knows,” she chuckled, her smirk all mischief. “But he taught me that the hardest thing to do sometimes is nothing.”

“He says patience isn’t a virtue I possess, but one that a good ruler does.”

“No one has patience. You just have to know when to do something and when to do nothing.”

With a huff, Lexa sat down and toweled the sweat on her shoulders and neck. She had studies and she had a cousin she had to watch, but more than that, she was awfully worried about her father.

“There’s so much happening outside of here, and no one cares. And now with this,” Lexa shook her head and met her mother’s eyes. “He’ll never let me experience land.”

“You’re needed here. Your duty is here.”

“I know,” she flexed her jaw.

“I think you know what that means you have to do.”

“I’m not going to get him. There’s a storm heading south.” The queen gave her a look and she knew she’d lose. “If he wants to sit out there, it’s his problem.”

“Lexa.”

“I’m a princess. I shouldn’t have to–”

“Lexa!”

As soon as she started the sentence, Lexa regret it. She wasn’t allowed to say things like that. So she snapped her mouth shut and she nodded again before standing.

“I’ll go,” she finally decided.

“You have to learn to temper your anger.”

“I’m not angry. Just annoyed.”

“Men have a tendency to do that.” The queen picked up another trident and smiled to herself, familiar with her daughter’s tempestuous moods. “You’re next to take over, Lexa. Your father had a hard enough time being from land. He’s protecting you.”

“I know. I wish he wouldn’t.”

“One day he won’t be able to, and you’ll think of this moment,” her mother promised sagely, earning an exhale and smile from her daughter. “You know where you went wrong today?”

“Waking up.”

“Not enforcing your will against Roan when he went back out. You knew he could cause trouble, and still you let him.”

“I know.”

“Try to make it home in time for dinner, love.”

* * *

There were certain things that Lexa was raised with that weighed on her heavily. They followed her around as she set out in search of her cousin, as she moved through the familiar walls of her home and past the familiar faces of the fellow Atlanteans she grew up knowing and learning.

Her mother was fiercely supportive of her father’s methods of uniting the land and sea, though his initiatives were slow to gain favor at home. Lexa grew up with that awe of being untrusting of the surface dwellers, while at the same time struggling with her father’s desires. They protected their own, they protected their home, they protected each other, and that was all she knew.

Still, some part of her wanted to know more, though her father wouldn’t allow it. The king would come home and tell her about some of his exploits, but for the most part, he could not risk the world knowing her, not until he deemed it ready. She was to know Atlantis and become its protector and ruler, without the imposition of his birth, and she understood the love he tried to install in her. She was to be distrustful of the world above, but not as much as her cousin.

“Storms coming in from the channel,” Lexa muttered as she finally found him back on their lookout. “Looks bad.”

“You are just as weak as the king,” he shook his head. “You’re here to bring me back.”

“My father is putting his life on the line for them, and for us,” she corrected. “Don’t forget who you are addressing, dear cousin.”

“For them, not for us.”

“Weakness was leaving you out here because I just didn’t want to deal with you, but if now is the time that I finally do, then so be it.”

Lexa didn’t budge as he moved closer, standing up along beside her, glaring and malicious from his crooked nose and small, black eyes to his pointed jaw and angular cheeks. He was every bit a product of the old guard, the very active voice of the city which vied to rid the planet of any outsiders from the land. He was rarely quiet, but he was often louder when her father was not around to keep him in line.

Now it was up to the princess, the rightful heir, the true inheritor of the crown of Atlantis.

“Daddy isn’t here, Lexa,” Roan reminded her, shifting his stance slightly.

“He isn’t,” she grinned and twirled the spear behind her back. “But my mother was the one that trained me.”

“If you want them to love you, you have to protect them.”

“From you.”

Chest to chest, weapons clutched tightly, they stared back at the other, waiting for a movement, for a reason.

“You can go back to the palace now,” Lexa finally managed. “Or I can have you arrested and held for treason.”

“What treason? I haven’t moved past the line your father drew in the sand,” he sneered.

“For disobeying the crown of Atlantis, which I represent.”

Above the waters churned and the currents shifted with the impending storm. The machines stopped their movements and the wires danced in the distance. Lexa felt all of it happening because she was attune to it all, she was more connected she was made of more salt than Roan could even imagine.

She watched him debate for a few seconds before the waves grew violent and a wire snapped and an explosion erupted above them.

“The sea knows its enemies,” he smirked and brushed past her. “And she has her own revenge for outsiders.”

Despite the swirling and mess happening above, despite the machines shifting because of the storm, Lexa hovered and watched Roan dart back toward their home, and for a moment she was almost disappointed she didn’t get the chance to finish it. There was a nagging part of her that new the gentle peace between them wouldn’t remain for much longer.

With Aquaman now a hero to the world, with the world shrinking into itself and getting to know the others that lived in entirely different galaxies, the future was speeding toward them, crashing into them like a barge with no lighthouse.

She should have gone home, but there was the outside world, right above her. Even with a storm, she wanted to see them. Unlike her cousin, Lexa was just curious about what her father kept away.

With an apprehensive, and slightly guilty, look back in the direction of her home, Lexa swam up toward the rocking boats and the choppy waves of the surface. She made it halfway before an explosion pushed her back and nearly blinded her.

In all directions, debris began to sink toward the bottom, wires whipped and fire burned, illuminating the darkness above. Wide-eyed and still infinitely curious, Lexa finally breached the top, to see what it all was about.

Her father was a legend, her grandfather and his and his and his were all myths that were worshipped by those on land. They were worshipped because they helped to calm the sea and save those who respected its well-being, who paid homage and who only wanted to exist. It wasn’t until she saw the bodies floating, did Lexa understand what that all meant.

The final ship that was just starting to smoke and tip was full of people yelling. Lexa hovered and watched them. She caught the large red cross on the side of it and inherently understood it. It hadn’t been there an hour ago, and must have been blown off course because of the storm.

The explosion didn’t take her off guard this time, and she ducked her head and waited. She kept coming upon bodies and watched them sink. The ocean would have its due.

The rain pelted and the waves grew so high and intense that she dove down and surveyed the wrecks, grateful that they were gone, and Roan didn’t have a chance to start any problems. Lexa believed in their gods, and was rewarded for it.

Lexa made a final note of the debris that would need cleaned and the bodies that would need returned, an act of goodwill that she hoped the land would appreciate. She would wait until the anger was washed away, and they would clean the border of their lands.

With a final glance at the churning, Lexa turned back toward home.

But a flash of red shot up into the sky and she tried to follow the point of origin to a pair of kicking legs.

Cautiously, she approached.

Wet and barely holding on, blood tinging the waters, the burned and wounded woman clung to a half inflated life raft. The flare gun still smoked in her hand before she lost consciousness and began to slip into the water.

Unsure of what she was doing, Lexa caught her, tugging her back above a few huge waves. Carefully, she pressed her fingers to the pulse point on her neck and found her alive.

Her grandfather’s grandfather was once revered for helping the land-walkers. He walked among them himself, just as her father walked among them. There was no staying away.

The choices were bleak; she could let her die or she could save her. Either way, she’d be hit with something, but one choice would leave her free of the feeling of murder.

With a sigh, she took off her helmet and placed it over the bleeding girl’s face, making sure it was snug.

“I hope you’re worth it.”

There was no answer, just the crash of thunder and the roar of the sea.


	2. Chapter 2

_“What did you do?”_

_“I did what my father would have done.”_

_“Your mother is going to murder you.”_

_“She won’t. She understands.”_

_“You need to tell everyone.”_

_“I’ll go get the healers. You go get the queen.”_

_“Try again.”_

_“Fine.”_

All words grumbled together behind the fierce, overwhelming throb of her aching head. She heard them, she just couldn’t make her brain translate them. Even worse, she was certain it wasn’t even English, and she couldn’t place what it was, so her brain was at a considerable disadvantage.

Despite it, the girl from the water tried to move, tried to open her eyes, but failed, her body hurting in too many ways, all stemming from a significant head wound and injury. She finally lifted her hand and felt a bandage before dropping it to her side.

The surface she was laying on my cozy, yet firm, like a thin bed, perhaps. It reminded her of piling blankets on the floor to watch movies, like when she was a kid.

More whispering an angry stomping followed as she turned her head toward it. Dead was the first guess, but there was too much pain for that to be true. Yet as she opened one eye and squinted against the light, she totally reconsidered the whole not living thing. She peered toward the voices but only saw an unfamiliar wall, made of something she didn’t understand, with almost translucent glass that had a brilliant green to it.

Against the dryness of her throat, she snorted and breathed quickly, the pain feeling like a vice, crushing her skull. With a little more effort she turned away, in the other direction, and decide she was in purgatory. A school of fish followed by a slow moving whale slid past her window. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t move though.

“Calm down,” a voice ordered, full and deep and full of authority. There was an accent to it, but again, as with everything that was happening through squinted eyes and ears, it wasn’t one her brain could place.

“I’m dead?”

“Stop moving. Let the kelp help with the wound,” the voice continued, adjusting her body on the bed, placing warm hands on her skull. “You’re very much alive.”

Tenderly, hands held her down until she relaxed. Thumbs soothed away worry by rubbing at her temples, and despite herself, Clarke felt somewhat safe. She couldn’t open her eyes, she couldn’t focus or feel anything but pain and that small attempt at alleviating it.

“Where am–? Mom?”

“Keep still. The healers are on their way,” she promised. The girl on the bed tried to look at what made the noise, but failed, as her eyes refused to open. “Drink this.”

With too much effort, she lifted up slightly and sipped at the cup of cool water. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t help, nor did anything dissuade her from her theory of being dead.

“What’s your name, air breather?”

It took a few deep breaths and more pain than she could imagine, but she managed an answer before gritting her teeth and drifting back into unconsciousness.

“Clarke.”

“You’re going to be okay, Clarke,” the voice promised once more as she drifted away. “I promise.”

* * *

“What did you do!”

Lexa retracted her hand from the edge of the bed where the girl from land rested fitfully. She could not touch her, but simply staring at her took too much of her senses to hear her mother approach. The pulpy salve of seaweed and kelp was wrapped in a bandage around her head, but the remnants of a trail of blood still remained on her skin until the healers could help. There was bruising on her ribs and hip, and her clothes were still damp, but she was something unlike anyone Lexa had ever seen.

“She was the only survivor,” Lexa explained, quickly snapping her eyes to her mother. “She wasn’t on those fracking crews. She was on a medical ship.”

“None of that matters!”

“Father said we are to protect–”

“Now you choose to listen to him,” the queen snorted and crossed her arms as she made her way around the table. “When politics are at an all time high and he is almost unfavored among our people and those of dry land, this is what you do?”

“If our family is to champion a new way, then we must be an example of it,” Lexa insisted. “She would have drowned had I not done something, and she wouldn’t have survived had I taken her to land.”

The queen looked at the girl on the bed who was no older than her own daughter. She still felt the old ways, she still felt the kind of distrust for the person that remained there, though she knew, deep down, there was no way for her to have planned a perfect series of events in which Lexa chose to bring her to the palace. But there is nothing logical about trust or faith or the past.

With a deep breath, the queen turned from her daughter and looked at the guards.

“Go get the healers. Tell them to move quicker than they are,” she ordered. “We won’t let her die in our palace. Gather the recovery crew to aid those from Land with the vessels and bodies at the wreckage site as soon as the storm passes. Find out who she is and send word to her mother that she is not dead, but receiving medical treatment and will be in touch as soon as she wakes.”

“Clarke,” Lexa offered, relaxing somewhat as her mother went into queen-mode. “She said her name was Clarke. She was on the USS Samaritan.”

There was a flurry of activity in the room as some left and came back and went about with their orders. But Lexa and her mother remained still, analyzing as many scenarios as they could with the addition of a very difficult new problem.

“This was your decision, and is yours to see through.”

“I know.”

Despite her forceful demeanor, the Queen softened at her daughter, oddly proud of her for making the decision that she did, oddly hopeful that everything her husband once hoped for was now a reality.

“I’m going to go see if I can reach your father. Let me know when she wakes up.”

“I will,” Lexa smiled slightly as her mother held her neck and pressed their foreheads together.

In a moment she was gone, moving toward the Bridge.

“No less than three guards are to be stationed here at all times. No one enters this hall, let alone that room without royal permission,” she went back to barking as she made her way down the hall.

Lexa smiled again before turning back to the girl on the table, the first person from land to be inside the walls since her father, and before that, no one. It was a small list, and she was curious as to how it would turn out. It was a gamble that would either assure her cousins quest to disparage her claim to the throne, or it was everything her father desired.

Either way, it was too late to turn back.

“Find me the moment she wakes,” she instructed a guard, earning a nod and salute.

With a final glance over her shoulder, Lexa stiffened herself, nodded, and tried to go figure out what came next.

* * *

The dizziness of the pills made the room feel like it was spinning. But Clarke still pushed herself up from the bed and looked around the foreign room. Outside there was a slight murmur, but her ears couldn’t make it out above the slight ringing that existed there. Instead, she blinked a few times and tried to understand what her brain was seeing and to master the feeling of nausea that took over her entire body.

Her legs seemed attached and still worked despite the aching, shooting pain from her side and hip when she moved. That didn’t stop her from shifting her legs until they fell over the side of the bed. As soon as she was sitting up, her head began to swirl, but she tried to shake that away.

The moments she took to regain herself, she looked around the room and took in the walls, the crisp white and light blue of them, the swirl of the marble of the floor with pale green and soft shades of the ocean itself.

The guard didn’t move at all when her eyes fell to him near the doorway. Instead, he let her look, taking in all that he was– the gleam of his bronze helmet, the tattoos on his chest, the spear, all of it. It was unlike any army Clarke could recognize. Long black hair was tied up tight atop his head, and a long scar ran from above his eyebrow across his face, and down his chest, through his beard. Clarke gulped before trying to think again.

“Where am I?”

Her words were scratchy barks. He didn’t even budge or shift or acknowledge that he heard anything.

“Can you understand me?” she tried again.

This time something happened, though nothing she understood. The large door opened and another guard came in before they whispered to each other in a language she couldn’t understand. The other left, shutting the door behind himself after giving her a look.

Clarke set her jaw and looked around the room as much as she could, as much as her body would allow her. The room was beautiful, simple, but with no windows to help ascertain what was happening. She sat on a bed in the middle. A few chairs were peppered throughout. What looked like marble floors and pillars set the tone. Clarke only remembered the storm and the explosion and then nothing but pain. She was dead, right?

It was only as she stood that she realized how torn her clothes were. Dried stiff from the water and blood, they still felt like the only source of comfort for her, the only thing that remained familiar.

“If you’re going to kill me, then kill me,” she shook her head and stared at the burly guard. “Don’t fix me and waste your time.”

He didn’t say anything, so she hung her head and tried to swallow.

In a matter of minutes, the guard changed, stiffening slightly just before the door opened. But as soon as it did, she understood why. In a complete lack of energy, she collapsed back onto the bed, making her groan against her broken body.

Tall and regal. Those were the first two words that came to Clarke’s mind when she saw the stranger that made the guards stand up a bit more than normal. Her hair was braided, this chestnut, almost red tint to it. Lighter than brown, auburn possibly. It changed when she moved, when light found different parts. But it was braided intricately in a way that made it look simple in the way that simple things are inherently beautiful.

Her face was angular, square in the jaw, sloping and long in the cheeks. Her Roman features were at home with the demeanor in which she entered, smiling and nodding her head to her guard. She was absolutely flawless and Clarke found it extra inconvenient that she could not swallow.

She wore a beautiful green garment, akin to a wetsuit, Clarke thought. A small tiara was nestled atop her head while a crest on her shoulder held a cloak in place around her chest. It was all effortless. She was important and that was established simply by the way her eyes moved around the room.

Clarke just stared and furrowed, still feeling her brain lagging with it all. She watched this stranger mutter something to the guard until he nodded and left with a knock of his spear against the ground.

Until the door closed, the newest addition to the room knitted her hands and let them rest in front of her, eyeing the patient curiously.

“My name is Alexandra Curry, and I saved you from the storm that took out some ships. You sustained a severe head wound and some broken ribs and a lot of bruises.”

Her voice had an accent, and Clarke was certain she wasn’t from somewhere close to home, though she couldn’t exactly place it. Instead, she cocked her head and winced as she wrapped her hand around her hurt side.

“Curry. Curry. Curry, like…” It made sense then. The symbol on the crest. The eyes, the deep green eyes. The room. The language. The secrecy. “No. No no no. No way. I’m dead. This is… this is madness.”

“Here I am known as Princess Alexandra. Most call me Lexa. I like to imagine that my father’s people do things like that. Nicknames and such.”

“You’re… you’re… you’re,” Clarke stuttered and shook her head before knitting her eyes shut even tighter and trying to wake up. “Your father is…”

“Arthur Curry.”

“Aquaman.”

“Yes, that too.”

“That means we’re… this is–”

“The palace of Atlantis,” Lexa nodded. “I found you in the water and brought you here for treatment. I feared you wouldn’t make the journey to land, and we have some advanced medical treatments that are better than Land.”

“I’m dead.”

“You’re very much alive. I made sure of that.”

It was too much. Her brain was exerting too much effort to figure this out. She felt like an overheating desktop computer, and she even heard the whirring between her ears.

“The rest of my crew? Dr. Singh? Dr. Wagner?”

Clarke looked back at the princess to see her swallow and shake her head softly. The ache in her heart and chest echoed the throbbing of her head.

“The healers have fixed you as best they can. Keep the bandage on. They are mixing something for the severe concussion. I will have my first bring you extra clothes to make you more comfortable. For now you are limited to this hallway. I will have food brought in.”

“They’re all dead,” Clarke shook her head, a small sob making her chest and back shake as she hugged herself tighter.

Lexa stiffened and pursed her lips, unsure of what to do next.

“My father said his favorite food was cereal. We have a supply. It’s a secret. I hope that is okay.”

With nothing else to say or do, Lexa stood their awkwardly and watched the injured girl put herself back together again. She took a deep breath and wiped a tear away from her cheek before setting her jaw, tight and rigid against the sadness with a nod.

“Thank you, your Highness.”

Lexa simply bowed quickly and left, the stoic, burly guard replacing her as soon as she disappeared.

Clarke sat on the bed and gripped her ribs and silently hoped she was dead after all.

* * *

It took a few rounds of medication for the survivor to fall asleep again, though by the time she did, Lexa could tell she was grateful for peace. By that time though, the palace was buzzing with word of their visitor and Lexa’s actions. As night fell, the palace calmed, but remained with this undercurrent of speculation.

Lexa ignored what she could as she walked the halls and distracted herself from the task at hand. She checked one final time on the girl who didn’t know how important she’d become, making sure at least some of the cereal she brought was eaten. When she found it untouched, when she saw the clothes she sent went unused, she tried not to take it so personally. She chalked it up to the brain injury and pain.

After giving the guards their instructions for the night, Lexa found her feet taking her toward the Bridge. Aimless as she wanted to be, it was no surprise to anyone that she ended up near her mother at the control center for their country.

Though it was late, Mera remained, looking through archives and following up with the documentations of the day, checking on the rebuilding of the Spindrift Embassy, waiting to hear from her husband. Lexa watched her for a moment before pulling up the chair beside her, nonchalant as ever despite the international incident that remained mildly concussed in the East Wing.

“I have two guards tailing Roan, to see if he makes a move while Father is gone,” Lexa began as she crossed her leg and leaned back, as if it were another normal day.

“Pertinent.” Her mother didn’t look up from her work.

“What did he say when you told him about Clarke?” she earned a look. “The girl from the wreckage.”

“Oh, yes,” the queen nodded. “I’ll let him know when he gets back. His head needs to be on what’s out there, not what’s happening here.”

“I did the right thing.”

“You did.”

“The Council will see that,” she decided, for herself, mostly.

“My darling,” her mother smiled. “One day, you will rule the Council. You will rule Roan, and many like him. If you do not have faith in your decisions, no one else will.”

“I had to tell her that her crew was dead.”

“That’s the job.”

On the screen in front of them, they watched the news of the Land, of the alien attack and the Justice League fighting it. On another screen, the guards changed in front of the girl from the land’s room. On another, research and plans for the Embassy that her mother was in charge of finishing once again.

The last Spindrift, the connection and first contact with the outside world, was ruined before Lexa was born, an attack from within Atlantis, and ever since, her father was wary of his own people, careful to take their concerns seriously, careful to introduce the rest of the world to them. He never stopped though. He did what was right.

“When she wakes I will ask her not to say she’s been here,” Lexa decided. “I’ve been working it over and over, and there’s no way this doesn’t complicate our relationship further with those on land.”

“And if she won’t?”

“She will.”

“Why do you think this is the right choice?” the queen asked, lifting her head from the screen and turning to her daughter.

Lexa grew up playing this game of choices. Frequently, she was tasked with learning the great philosophers and the history of the world, and then applying it to real situations. There was no curriculum for a ruler.

“If we acknowledge my choice, it opens up our embassy to requests from everyone to come here. If she tells, there’s no justification in why I saved her and we don’t patrol hoping to save all victims except that it is not our way, and we believe that the gods take what they want.”

“And the outsiders don’t like that answer.”

“No.”

“Why did you save her?” This time it was her mother asking, not the queen. Lexa smiled shyly, soft and small and barely there, nothing more than a quick twitch of her lip.

“It was a medical ship. No one else survived. I just…” Lexa thought about it and shrugged, unable to find an actual reason. “We save people.”

“We?”

“Aquaman.”

“That is a crown you don’t have to wear, my darling,” her mother offered, rubbing her daughter’s knee. “You know this. It is what strains his relationship here.”

“We save people because it’s right and we can,” Lexa nodded to herself. “I won’t regret that, and I can still hold my people’s interest above all else while not letting innocent people die.”

For a moment, deep green eyes were staring back at her, amused and chuckling despite the strength and conviction in the words. Mera cupped her daughter’s cheek and patted it a second later, fond and absolutely in love with who she’d become.

“You’re too much like your father,” the queen chuckled.

“He says I’m too much like you.”

“If you were like me, your answer would have been because she’s gorgeous,” she taunted, returning back to her screens.

Slightly dumbfounded, Lexa gulped and refused to blush, though she had no real control over that. Her mother caught it and smiled victoriously.

“It was the right thing to do,” she insisted once again.

“I’ll get in contact with Captain Stanton with the Coast Guard, and see if we can transfer the survivor. The healers say she should have her wits back by tomorrow.”

“Her ribs are still very badly bruised, and her hip will need monitored.”

“The sooner the better.”

“I agree.”

“Good.”

Like they had for years and years, the mother and daughter sat at the head of the Bridge and talked into the late hours of the night, debating this and that, but being absolutely happy with themselves. Even though there were problems, even though there were complications, even though their father and husband being gone, they were a unit.

Lexa relaxed and tried to ignore her mother’s words about Clarke, though she did spend some time trying to get it out of her head completely. Instead, she focused on taking over for her father in every way.

If it meant saving beautiful blondes, then so be it.


	3. Chapter 3

Salt. The salt of the ocean and blood and sweat mingled together in her dry mouth. The smell of smoke and salt all overwhelmed her, but she couldn’t see anything, just felt every horrible feeling that went with the explosion.

Hands woke her. Old, arthritic, knowing hands adjusted her body and rubbed a sweet, almost minty smelling salve on the laceration on her head. The pain lessened with it, and Clarke opened her eyes once she felt another bandage being wrapped. Blankly, she stared at the old woman who refused to meet her eyes, but instead focused intently on finishing her duty.

It wasn’t until she moved away that Clarke realized how much pain she’d been in the night before. It wasn’t gone, but the overwhelming ache was reduced to a dull echo. That was, until she remembered those she lost; her mentor, her teacher, her friend, and yet she was left alive. For a moment, she closed her eyes felt that crushing weight as fresh as ever. She wanted to ask for a sweet smelling salve for that, for her heavy heart, but she couldn’t form the words. Instead, she just swallowed the tears.

“Ánoîxeta,” the old women muttered, nodding her head at Clarke’s old, blood-covered shirt. “Afa irés ti to.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she shook her head.

The old woman humphed and tugged slightly at Clarke’s shirt, hoping she would get the message. She held up a new bandage and looked pointedly at where Clarke’s ribs were still broken.

Getting the message, Clarke sat up, wincing with the pain and the tears. Despite the old woman’s annoyance with how slow the patient was in understanding her simple instructions, she softened and helped her sit up fully, and even to tug her shirt over her head.

“That smells good, but I’ll take some more of those pills if you’re my nurse. They numbed me really we– Oooph,” she grunted as a warm palm pressed against the purpling on her side.

The nurse closed her eyes and held Clarke between her hands, softly rubbing in the ointment and relaxing the muscles. Clarke was weak against whatever she was doing, and felt herself relax even further.

“Tha therapéf sete,” she decided with a nod, taking Clarke’s hand to hold the beginning of a bandage as she wrapped it expertely around her body.

Completely shirtless and almost totally naked, Clarke just lifted her arms and let it happen. When it was done, she watched the nurse totter over to a table that now had a bag on it and from whence she must have brought the materials. With expert hands she took out a few vials and began mixing them in water, measuring carefully until a very new, very comforting smell arose from it.

“Pínete aftó,” the nurse directed, handing Clarke a cup that smelled like warm strawberries and cucumbers, though it was almost black in color.

“I still don’t understand your words.”

“Pínete aftó.”

“I don’t know what’s in this, but I’m not going to just–”

“Pínete aftó, peismatáris kavoúria.”

This time, she pushed it a little harder into Clarke’s hand and mimed what she meant, doing it a few times as Clarke cocked her head and debated what it all meant, and if she should do it. She sighed and gulped it down, a weird, salty taste counteracting the almost good smell.

“Ola.” The nurse tipped it, signifying that all must be finished. With a face, Clarke did as instructed.

If she remembered correctly, she was in Atlantis. If she wasn’t actually dead, she was somewhere no one else went. If she wasn’t dreaming, then the girl that she met, with the eyes and the face of a goddess was a real person who–

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to intrude,” a startled voice exclaimed, immediately turning around and facing the wall away from the exam table.

Clarke jumped and looked down, aware she was completely topless save for a tattered bra that had certainly seen better days. She pulled a sheet up around her, the burn of a blush seering her body, while the ointments and whatever else the healer did, at least mitigated the pain from the quick movement.

“I had clothes and a bath prepared for you, whenever you’d like, across the hall,” she explained as Clarke tugged on her old shirt. “We want you to feel comfortable.”

“You’ve already been too kind,” Clarke offered to the back of the crowned-princess of an underwater country. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did. I’m… I’m… I feel better already.”

“I just did the right thing.”

“It was more than that.”

The nurse nodded and Clarke thanked her as she moved toward the princess in her tiny, measured steps, the bag clutched tight and almost as big as she was. She paused at the future monarch and bowed, though Lexa reached out her hand and lifted her deep show of reverence, halting her adoration and expressing her own.

“Eínaix kalí?” Lexa asked, making a quickly look at Clarke. She earned a nod and a brief explanation of something, the nurse staring at the patient as she spoke. “Efcha rixósat, mitéra.”

Lexa returned the bow, earning a smile from the healer as she said a few more things, earning a smile from her before she left, leaving the two alone in the room.

“She said you are healing well, and are quite stubborn.”

“A woman speaking another language hands you a cup of black liquid, and you get a little suspicious. Sue me.”

Lexa cocked her head and watched Clarke put her shirt over her bandage. She wasn’t sure what came next, just that she had to be there and could do nothing else.

“Are you well enough to move?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m going to anyway.”

“The healer was right about you, Clarke,” Lexa taunted. “Stubborn.”

“I never said she was wrong.”

“My attendants will take you to clean up now, and then you are to join my mother and myself to break bread and discuss returning you home,” Lexa said stiffly, formal as all else.

She was accustomed to the pomp and circumstance that her status required. Of course, she just earned the look of annoyance now.

“I have to see it,” Clarke shook her head before shutting her eyes tightly as the pain caught up with her when she stood. “I have to see it so it’s true.”

“See what?”

“Atlantis.”

“You’re seeing it now,” Lexa reminded her.

“Please, Your Highness, I just can’t believe–”

“Lexa.”

Clarke paused and steadied herself before leveling a glance at the future ruler.

“I can’t believe any of it is real until I’m sure.”

Despite herself, despite her mother’s worry, despite all of it, Lexa swallowed and nodded. She’d been trained from a young age to disarm anyone with her wit or her braun, and now she was completely disarmed by those eyes and the stranger before her.

* * *

The makeshift hospital room was a converted spare from the old wing of the palace. It faced the Old Quarter and was sparsely decorated, used primarily for days of the feast or of business from other areas in the kingdom. It was a small room, easily guarded with only one entrance and exit, but the view was quite nice, and much different than the one Lexa was accustomed to in her room.

But still, she stood at the window in the hall and watched someone see her home for the first time, and it did something to her head.

“It’s,” Clarke began but swallowed her thoughts, or perhaps they just got stuck there. “It’s just…”

There must have been some pain there, but still Clarke pressed her hand against the glass and looked out onto Atlantis. Lexa just watched, completely mesmerized.

“I’m not dead. I’m in Atlantis.”

They were statements and questions, but Lexa didn’t have an answer when she turned toward her.

Lexa knew blues. She knew every shade of blue imaginable, or so she thought. She’d seen the green-blue that existed in the shallows to the west. And she knew the blue-greens that lived in still-like coves to the east. She even knew the pale, sky kind of blue that bled right up into the universe. She was intimately aware of how heavy the dark, deep blues could feel against her lungs. She was even knowledgeable about the blue that mingled with the stars, that almost black, blue. Or that purple-blue that came at dusk, or the blue-purple that came at dawn. But never, ever, ever, in her entire life, in the entire spectrum of blues that encompassed her very being, the very core of her life, had she ever seen a blue like the shade of eyes that were looking at her currently.

“You’re Aquagirl.”

“Just Lexa is fine,” she offered, looking back at the skyline. “I don’t really get to do anything like my father. I am explicitly forbidden from contact with Land.”

“This is real, right? There’s a whale. And that’s… this is the most ancient city on the planet.”

“It’s real.”

“I thought I made you up,” Clarke took a deep breath and pressed her forehead against the window. She couldn’t stop looking.

“I’m real.”

“Why did you save me?”

“In the entire sea, I was where you needed me, at the exact right moment.” Lexa furrowed and leaned against the wall with her shoulder, crossing her arms defensively in front of her chest. “We don’t believe in luck here, just fate.”

“I’m not sure I would have accepted the internship had I known what Fate had in store for me.”

Her words didn’t match the amazement and wonder she had as she looked at the world at the bottom of the ocean, eyes wide and memorizing every inch and second of it. Lexa just smiled and followed her gaze, distracted by fate and the many shades of blue.

* * *

It was her decision.

Those were the last words her mother said to her when she told her she was accepting the research assistant job her professor offered instead of going to med school. It was said with that tone, that motherly tone, that I-need-you-to-realize-this-is-a-mistake tone, that absolutely drove Clarke nuts.

It was her decision.

To get on the ship, to want to make her own money to escape her mother’s influence, to study biology, to make her way to the bridge when the storm was at its worst. Carke madea lot of decisions, actually, that she was rehashing with perfect hindsight.

The memories followed her into the tub, and as Clarke eased herself into the warm water, she thought about how she ended up being knocked unconscious with a severe concussion, and somehow ended up in Atlantis. Or she was dead. That still wasn’t completely off the table yet. It would make sense that her brain would die and send her off into whatever came next with dreams of a reclusive underwater world. If she died in the water, then it would make sense.

But Lexa was so real.

The significance was not lost on her. The last effort to join the land and sea ended up in a blown up embassy and the whisperings of a civil war beneath the water. By the time she was born, it was just a hostile nation. But lately, as things got more and more dangerous on land, conversations began again, ground broke already on the new embassy.

But no one was invited to Atlantis. They enjoyed a large border around the capital and kingdom, and free reign of the seas for the most part. There were always attempts to infiltrate it, but no one got closer than a hundred miles. And yet, here Clarke was, bathing in the palace.

The scientist in her wanted to know what she’d been drinking and putting on her body, she wanted to know about the healer and what she did, because her ribs felt better already, after less than a day. Tentatively, Clarke pressed her hand against her body in the water, noticing a forgiving kind of pain there. The medications and practice the healer did to her was insanely effective, and unfamiliar.

All at once, she wanted to know more, and yet she couldn’t ask. She was already someone who saw too much, and if she was alive, and not dead, that would be a liability.

And while she was afraid of knowing too much, Clarke furrowed and sank into the water as she tossed it all around in her head. The king was gone, dealing the emergency on land. He had a daughter who saved her life. That was a lot. A daughter who had these heavy, sad eyes, which was even more of a problem.

If she was alive, and she was in Atlantis, she was in a place that no human had entered in over twenty years. Rarely was Aquaman spotted. From time to time, pirates would be mysteriously marooned. Poachers were discovered, tied to piers. When Clarke was just a kid, and there were violent attacks, the League regrouped, and Aquaman made an appearance. But no one knew about Aquagirl. At least not officially. Or if she really was Aquagirl. No one knew about the heir to the throne. No one knew that healers had a black liquid that could cure aches.

Clarke did though.

Slowly, Clarke pulled herself out of the water, leaving it grimy and somewhat bloody as she cleansed her bruises. She methodically focused on wrapping her ribs once again, putting on the ointment the healer left. She wrapped her ribs in a similar way and slid on the pale blue, almost white dress that flowed and fit her too well. The fabric was soft, almost cotton in a way, but lighter and softer and utterly perfect.

A guard met her outside of the bathroom and escorted her down the hall, this time past the room she’d come to recognize as her’s, at least for a moment.

“We do not fight the wills of the gods, no matter how fickle or random.”

“I was there, I did what I could.” Clarke recognized Lexa’s voice now. “This isn’t a debate, Anya.”

“You just expect us to be safe now?”

“You sound like Roan.”

“Don’t! This is not like him. This is common sense, and as your primary and intelligence liaison, I can only begin to scratch the surface of the implications–”

“It will be okay,” Lexa sighed. When she finally made it into the dining room, another woman, taller than Lexa, with darker hair and a meaner scowl snapped her eyes to the newest member. Clarke looked away quickly and found Lexa’s small smile. “It’s fate.”

“Dein xérot poiqos eísai tóra,” the stranger shook her head, never taking her eyes off of Clarke.

It looked like the words hurt, but Lexa only flinched slightly as the guard made Clarke sit.

“Clear the way for our trip to the Spindrift whenever possible.” She wanted to argue, but the stranger with the wild hair and wrathful eyes bit her cheek and nodded. “That is all.”

As much as Clarke wanted to ask or offer or apologize or thank again, it didn’t seem right. Instead, she just let the awkward moment settle between them, and she filled it with gazing about the magnificent room, with the stories high windows and view of the world outside. She wasn’t going to forget anything.

“Is there something I’m supposed to do when I meet the queen?” Clarke asked, surprised to find Lexa looking at her when she turned away from the window.

“When she enters, you stand,” Lexa offered. “You are nervous?”

“I nearly died and now have to dine with a sovereign leader who can breathe underwater and is married to a man who wields a trident. I feel a lot of things.”

Amused by the answer, Lexa grinned and adjusted in her seat, more relaxed at the honesty than a fake vote of confidence.

“She’s better with it than him,” she promised.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Before Lexa could offer any kind of words to assure the stranger, she heard the knock of the spears and knew her mother was coming. She looked back just as Clarke pushed herself up and hissed against the pain.

The queen was beautiful, and Clarke knew her own face looked like she was writhing and sweating from exertion. But here she was, against an effortlessly beautiful queen who seemed to glide right into the room. Her crown was bigger than Lexa’s, her hair a deeper red, but the slope of their cheeks and chin remained similar. She was also, again, too beautiful. She was a goddess, and Clarke wasn’t sure why they didn’t send her out to deal with the problems of the world.

“Sit, sit, please,” she rushed, a look of concern washing over her face. “Do not extend yourself for me. You must be in pain.”

“I’m fine,” Clarke lied with a weak smile. “Your majesty,” she added quickly.

“You look much better than when I saw you last,” she remarked, sizing up the newcomer as she took her seat at the head of the table.

Clarke was too distracted by her beauty. The strong shoulders, the soft, royal green tunic that hung there, over the dress. There wasn’t one part of her that wasn’t perfect and beyond reproach.

“Your doctor was very thorough. Thank you.”

There was quiet between them. Clarke felt her head still spin, though she wasn’t sure which stimuli was actively doing it to her. She had too many to choose from, whether it be the Queen with a look that could skin a man alive, her daughter, with the beautiful eyes and face and entire package, the fact that she was dining in Atlantis, or the severe concussion she certainly couldn’t be over just yet. Something had her all jumbled.

With a small nod, two guards opened a side door, letting in servers with plates in their hands.

“Before we discuss your stay and the rather… peculiar way in which you came,” the monarch gave a pointed look at her daughter who had sense enough to keep her eyes steadfastly on the food as it was placed in front of her. “You will eat. Rather than bombard you with our specialties, I had something from my husbands secret stash prepared.”

For a moment, Clarke laughed as she looked at what was served. Two eyes snapped to her, and immediately she gulped.

“I’m sorry. I appreciate it. It’s just,” she chuckled again without meaning to. “I was on a ship that blew up, and I woke up in Atlantis. Atlantis. And I’m eating at the most beautiful table I’ve ever seen, that can fit about thirty people, with windows the size of football fields that overlook the entire kingdom of Atlantis. Atlantis! And I’m doing it with the Queen and the princess. And they thoughtfully had peanut butter sandwiches prepared for me.”

She sounded insane. Completely mad, and she knew it. She couldn’t stop though, because the more she realized, the more she took in the scene, the more ridiculous it all seemed. But she looked down at the sandwich on her plate and she snorted again, before a shot of pain reminded her why it wasn’t advisable.

Across from her, Lexa watched her, and despite herself, she smiled slightly with the description. The queen simply enjoyed it, but deep, deep beneath a demeanor of authority.

“You’ve had quite a few days, Clarke.”

“It feels like a dream.”

“She still has a head wound,” Lexa offered.

“I think even without that, she’d feel similar.”

“Thank you,” Clarke swallowed and moved to pick up the sandwich. “I mean it. I am overwhelmed by your kindness.”

For a few minutes, they sat there, quietly eating and mulling over the incident, both the intricacies of it, and the overarching themes. The queen watched and considered all options, while her daughter did her best to not look at anyone.

“My daughter tells me that the ship you were on was conducting research?” the Queen began, never unsure of herself or her place. “Are you a scientist, Clarke?”

“I am. A student still. I was helping my professor work on treatments for infectious diseases as they adapt to medication.”

“So you still have much to learn?”

“To be honest, the past few days have made me reconsider boats for a while, and I’m not sure what that means for my semester.”

Clarke missed the look that the queen gave her daughter, urging her into the conversation. Instead, she sipped from her cup and was pleasantly surprised to find a sweet, deep flavor to the wine, or what she was assuming was wine.

“What do they say about us, up there?” Lexa finally tried.

“Hm?”

“On land. What do they think about Atlanteans?”

To her credit, Clarke gave it a bit of thought before she decided on the best answer.

“Curious. Fearful and curious. No one knows much, and so you’re just an exciting place that was once a myth, but now is a reality. It’s like knowing that all of the fairy tales are true, and then someone telling you they won’t show you behind the curtain,” Clarke explained. “When people don’t know about something, they automatically fear it.”

“And what do you think?” Meera asked.

“Before?” she earned a nod. “I guess I never gave it much thought. I knew you were out here somewhere. But when you live up there, sometimes the crime and the aliens distract you from worrying about what isn’t attacking.”

“Very pragmatic of you.”

“I’m just a scientist, or at least trying. I don’t like to think of the politics of the world.”

It was enough for the queen to feel somewhat better. She was simply grateful that her daughter hadn’t picked up a soldier or someone with the government. But she pushed her half eaten sandwich away slightly and leaned back to sip her wine.

“You can recover for a few days here. When the storm finally clears, we will take you back if that is acceptable,” the queen conceded. “You are not a prisoner here. We just apologize for the logistics that politics impose.”

“I am beyond honored, your majesty,” Clarke swallowed, careful to take a small bite of the peanut butter sandwich. “I can’t thank you for your hospitality enough, just like I can’t thank Lexa for saving me. But I don’t want to be a burden.”

“Nonsense. You’re here already. The deed is done.”

Lexa felt her ears burn slightly at her mother’s words. She chewed and tried to look nonplussed, and for what it was worth, she imagined that she succeeded in some way.

“I won’t… I won’t tell anyone about it. I know you are afraid of that. I’m okay with washing ashore… or just” Clarke clenched her jaw and shook her head, embarrassing herself immensely with the inability to form the right words. “You have no reason to trust me. But I won’t tell anyone about Atlantis.”

“We will have more to discuss as time wears on,” the queen smiled. “We’ve been in touch with trusted entities in the government, and this will be handled deftly.”

“Okay.”

“The opening of the Spindrift will be a perfect cover, and then we can pretend this never happened.”

“Didn’t we push that because of Father’s… business?” Lexa perked up, finally finding an entry into the conversation.

“It is, but we will open it before I die. I swear to Poseidon.” 

Clarke watched Lexa smile slightly, amused by her mother. With a small nod, once again the doors were opened, and the queen stood.

“I trust you will find yourself without want while you are our guest,” she offered Clarke who quickly moved to stand before being waved back to her chair.

“Thank you,” Clarke offered.

“Lexa, see to the guards on her wing, and find me before you retire,” Meera offered as she made her way around the table. She smoothed her daughter’s hair before continuing on toward her exit.

In her wake, Clarke just looked around again, feeling the tangible absence of her power and electricity. She existed in a room and took it up, no matter how large the room, no matter how many people. Her departure let Clarke relax, and it let her remember that her body was still broken. Adrenaline and whatever concoctions they’d given her had been enough for a while, but the combination of that and a full belly did wonders.

“Unfortunately, you cannot leave the palace. We cannot let our people know you are here as much as you cannot let yours know you were ever in Atlantis,” Lexa picked up right where her mother left off. “But you can see much of it from here.”

“I’m honestly pretty exhausted and would like to sleep forever.”

There was no sense of a joke in her words, but Lexa saw her face, and she just nodded.

“I’ll have your guard accompany you with instructions you are not to be bothered.”

“You don’t have–”

“Would you like some more to eat?”

Clarke stifled a yawn and held her stomach before nodding. She watched Lexa whisper with a guard she called forward and shortly later a sandwich appeared again. With just a nod, she started to eat, the events catching up with her yet again.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have questions, or that she didn’t want to talk with Lexa, but rather that she simply couldn’t form the words. She gave them all to the Queen, and had none left. But Lexa didn’t seem to mind. She just sat there and politely gazed out the window until Clarke finished.

With a single tilt of her head, the guard stepped forward and Clarke knew it meant to stand. Lexa walked beside her, down the hall though, almost afraid to leave her alone.

“The healer will be in again tomorrow. I will see you in the morning,” Lexa offered before quickly turning away as Clarke leaned against her door.

“Lexa,” Clarke called quickly. “Thank you again. I’m sorry I’m… I’m not usually like this. I’m much more put together.”

“I think you’re handling this rather admirably.”

“I think you’re being kind.”

“Kind of,” she shrugged. There was a glint of amusement in her eyes, but she quickly turned before Clarke could be certain. “Sleep well, stubborn girl.”

“Sleep well, princess.”


End file.
